Anyway, here's another little practise piece from the excellent Writer's Toolbox, by Jamie Cat Callan.
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After only two months, Emma decided to become an exotic dancer. The employment opportunities were vastly superior, for a start. The chances of her getting a spot in the Ballet Rambert, the English National or the Bolshoi were slim-to-non-existent. So she quit the ballet classes and enrolled at a gym. She knew the moves, she just needed to get toned.
"Why don't you try a circus?" suggested Ralph, her personal trainer. "I don't want you to demean yourself by becoming a glorified stripper, sweet."
Emma grunted, "'Cos I fucking hate clowns," as she struggled through the fifteenth 'rep' on her quads. Only five more to go.
Ralph watched as the perspiration beaded on Emma's brow, soaking through her headband and dampening her short blonde hair. The sweat seeped into her lime green leotard. He could see why the guys, and, it was rumoured, a couple of the girls, liked her.
Emma finished her twentieth 'rep' and collapsed back onto the bench. "Fuck, that hurt," she gasped.
Ralph wished she wouldn't swear so much. It marred her otherwise angelic demeanour. "Go again?" he asked.
"No way," Emma replied. "I've done enough for one night."
Sucking on a plum lollipop, her go-to flavour now that she had (mostly) kicked the cigarettes, Emma left the gym into a riot of colour, music, laughter and blaring horns. A ten-foot tall bloke bent down and handed her a bright orange leaflet. "Rizzo's Circus," proclaimed the flyer, "The Greatest Show On Earth." Times and dates were stamped in the corner, thankfully obscuring the clown's face. The first performance was in an hour.
She looked back up at the ten-foot guy on stilts. "Coming?" he asked.
It was probably just the strain of her exercise session, Emma reasoned, but her legs were wooden and her mind fogged with exhaustion, as she joined the crowd and followed the circus parade through town to the big top.
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Colin
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